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'It makes perfect sense'

Mr Dockrell continued: “[In an acute hospital] if you have your own room, you are not going to cause any annoyance to anybody else by the vapour, you can safely charge your e-cigarette. That makes perfect sense.

“It is going for each hospital to make their own policy but yes we would certainly encourage them to make at least some single occupancy rooms where people can vape. Of course smoking it prohibited everywhere.

Public Health England say there is no evidence to prove vaping is harmful (Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“There is no evidence [vaping] is harmful. It might be annoying for some people.”

'Vaping is a fraction of the risk of smoking'

Prof John Newton, director for health improvement at PHE, said: “Every minute someone is admitted to hospital from smoking, with around 79,000 deaths a year in England alone.

“Our new review reinforces the finding that vaping is a fraction of the risk of smoking, at least 95% less harmful, and of negligible risk to bystanders.

“Yet over half of smokers either falsely believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking or just don’t know.

“It would be tragic if thousands of smokers who could quit with the help of an e-cigarette are being put off due to false fears about their safety.”

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Prof Newton said employers should provide space - either inside or outdoors - for staff to vape.

He added: “Staff should be allowed access to spaces where they can use e-cigarettes if that’s what they’re trying to do.

“There are places where smoking is banned but vaping should be allowed around workplaces, but not actually at their desk.”

Public Health England say people should have places at work to vape (Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Despite the support for e-cigarettes in the UK some studies, usually on mice, have suggested there may be health risks to the relatively new devices.

However PHE leaders insist nicotine is not harmful and tests suggesting this often pump rodents full of abnormally high doses of nicotine which humans would never be exposed to.

'Toxic smoke is the culprit'

Lead author Ann McNeill, professor of tobacco addiction at King’s College London, said: “It’s of great concern that smokers still have such a poor understanding about what causes the harm from smoking.

“When people smoke tobacco cigarettes, they inhale a lethal mix of 7,000 smoke constituents, 70 of which are known to cause cancer.

“People smoke for the nicotine, but contrary to what the vast majority believe, nicotine causes little if any of the harm.

“The toxic smoke is the culprit and is the overwhelming cause of all the tobacco-related disease and death.”

PHE is calling for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to support manufacturers to license the products as medical quit aids so they can be made available on the NHS.

Previous plans to prescribe e-cigarettes collapsed following the abandonment of the only product licensed for medical use.

The eVoke device received approval two years ago but British American Tobacco, which holds the medical licence, said the product is unlikely to “see the light of day” because of production difficulties.

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Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, said: “We welcome PHE’s support for e-cigarettes but further attempts to remove smoking shelters or ban smoking on NHS sites will be fiercely resisted.”